Netflix's New Movie Takes On a Suddenly Controversial Reproductive Treatment. Does It Get It Right?

The grinding trial-and-error process that precedes world-changing scientific discoveries doesn't really lend itself to dramatization. Instead of our heroes chasing bad guys down dark alleys, the exciting story action involves them standing in front of a blackboard or gazing into a microscope. So dramatic tension is injected by financial or political forces threatening to derail a project of urgent importance (Oppenheimer); the scientists fighting for credibility in the face of belonging to a marginalized group (Hidden Figures, The Imitation Game, any biopic of a female scientist); or the old reliable of the main scientist being a difficult, maverick genius (Oppenheimer again). Joy: The Birth of IVF, Ben Taylor's new film out now on Netflix, about the arduous path to develop a viable technique for fertilizing human eggs outside the body and implanting them in the womb, aka in vitro fertilization, hits many of these notes. There's the irascible pioneer, here played by Bill Nighy at his most crotchety but sympathetic as gynecologist Patrick Steptoe, who introduced laparoscopy to the U.K. He's teamed with the driven visionary--physiologist Robert Edwards, played by James Norton, who, like Jude Law, is always required to conceal his innate gorgeousness under an unbecoming wig or glasses to convince as an ordinary guy.